


boys and girls of every age (wouldn't you like to see something strange?)

by 26stars



Series: Fall Prompts 2020 [8]
Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: (so Ward's around but not making trouble), Bus Kids - Freeform, Bus era, Gen, Prank Wars, Season 1 era, brotp Fitzskimmons - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-09
Updated: 2020-10-09
Packaged: 2021-03-07 22:56:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,156
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26915485
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/26stars/pseuds/26stars
Summary: Skye, Fitz, and Simmons have been falling victim to some fairly harmless pranks lately and are convinced that Ward is to blame. Payback ensues but with an unexpected ending.For the fall prompt 'bus kids+supernatural' for Springmagpies; also fills my 'partner in crime' square for femslash bingo (skye and jemma obv).
Relationships: Bus Kids+ Ward, Leo Fitz & Jemma Simmons & Skye | Daisy Johnson, Phil Coulson & Melinda May
Series: Fall Prompts 2020 [8]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1931209
Comments: 15
Kudos: 32





	boys and girls of every age (wouldn't you like to see something strange?)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Springmagpies](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Springmagpies/gifts).



> Thanks for the prompt Maggie! It's not as supernatural as the prompt might sound but I hope you still enjoy!

On a plane with technology as advanced as SHIELD’s, it was easy to feel like there was no space safe from being overheard, whether by an obvious camera or by a teammate “stumbling upon” them. Skye had explored every inch of the parts of the plane she was allowed into (which ruled out the cockpit, AC’s office, and her teammates’ bunks), and of course she’d hacked into the security system on her second day in the Bus, so she thought she had pretty good handle on what was and wasn’t able to be seen by teammates. Still, with three of the five other people on the plane being superspies, she wasn’t fully convinced that each of them didn’t have their own private security feeds set up…

So in the end, the only place Skye was confident wasn’t being surveyed was her own bunk.

So that was where she corralled Fitz and Jemma to discuss their latest findings.

“It _has_ to be Ward,” Skye said forcefully, speaking barely above a whisper, just in case (even though she was watching the cameras of the Bus’s main cabin on her computer as she spoke…).

“I know I’ve said it plenty already, but I just don’t think it’s him,” Fitz muttered, shaking his head. “Not because he’s nicer than that, but because he doesn’t have a humorous bone in his body.”

“Just the two in his arms,” Jemma added, causing both Skye and Fitz to look at her skeptically. “Oh that’s right, neither of you ever took an Academy biology class…”

“Or _any_ biology class,” Skye grumbled, checking her laptop again. Coulson was out of sight up in his office, May was in the cockpit, and Ward was, she thought, in his bunk—at least, he wasn’t visible on any of the other cameras…

“So assuming it _is_ Ward,” Skye continued, “which it obviously is; you know you agree…how are we going to get him back for all this?”

The “all this” was a collection of events in the past few days, with each of the three of them falling victim at least once to some rather…eerie happenings. Mostly, it was things being misplaced and then found in completely illogical locations. Skye’s laptop charger appearing in her shoe. Jemma’s goggles migrating from the lab to the kitchenette refrigerator. But then there was the strange incidence where Fitz opened the drawers beneath his bed and found all of his shirts and sweaters—every single one—had been turned inside out and refolded in their same places. And now that she thought about it, Skye had noticed that the little hula girl on her bunk’s windowsill was sometimes facing the opposite direction when she returned to her bunk. Like now.

She reached over and turned the little figure around and chose not to comment on it.

“I say getting him back with the same tactics is letting him off easy,” she went on. “Just silently messing with our stuff is obviously just supposed to annoy us but be easy enough to deny. I say we need to go big or go home, nip this in the bud.”

Jemma looked worried. “Exactly how big do you mean?”

~

The next day, Skye was nearly stalking Ward’s every move, keeping Fitz and Jemma notified through their tablets about where Ward was at all times. Their window of opportunity came in the middle of the morning when Skye was done with her morning drill but had Ward stayed behind to spar with May for a little while, and the three of them lunged for his bunk as soon as Coulson was upstairs in his office. Fitz used one of his gadgets to unlock the door while Skye scrambled the relevant cameras, and then they all ducked inside, stifling laughter already.

The bunk was, surprisingly, immaculately organized, which just made everything a lot more fun. Jemma stripped the bed while Skye and Fitz rapidly turned all of Ward’s clean clothes inside-out, throwing them on the bare mattress, then adding all the contents of his desk surface and all the shoes on the floor, then the pillows and comforter… lastly, they all worked together to stretch the fitted sheet over everything, effectively bagging up his entire room in one neat little bulge.

The three of them made it out and back down to the lab with minimal giggles and no sighting of Coulson, and they all heard Ward’s loud exclamation when he got back to his room a little while later. Skye, Fitz, and Simmons were all crowded around her laptop to watch his reaction from the camera outside his bunk—he came out positively fuming, which just made them laugh harder.

Of course he marched straight down to the lab to confront them, and after only a few seconds of denial, Skye dissolved into incriminating laughter.

“Okay, fine, it was us. So, are we even now?” she said, hanging one hand from her hip.

“What are you talking about?” Ward said, looking tired.

Jemma crossed her arms. “Don’t deny it, we know it was you.”

“What was me?” he asked, looking so bewildered that Skye might have been convinced if she didn’t already know Ward was, you know, a spy…

“Moving all our stuff. Messing with our bunks,” she says, thinking of her hula girl and Fitz’s wardrobe. “It was time for us to return the favor.”

“That wasn’t me.”

“Sure it wasn’t,” Fitz said bravely, mirroring Jemma’s gesture of folding her arms.

“I’m serious,” Ward said, turning to go. “I have no idea what you’re talking about. Now stay the hell out of my bunk.”

“Do you expect me me to believe it was a ghost that did all that to us?” Skye called after him, feeling more uncertain by the second.

Ward is already ascending the spiral staircase. “If that helps you sleep at night.”

There was a moment of silence after he disappeared, and the three of them looked slowly back and forth between each other.

“I don’t believe him,” Skye eventually said, telling herself as much as telling the others.

“Well, I kind of do,” Fitz said, twiddling his fingers, “but what does that mean for us? Either the plane has a ghost with a penchant for mischief, or the senior agents are having some fun at our expense.”

Skye glanced at the camera in the corner of the lab.

“I don’t know. I don’t think either of them have the energy.”

~

Upstairs, May straightened up from Coulson’s computer, which was displaying the camera feed from the lab, and folded her arms.

“So. Wait a day, let them get nervous, then start again at another level?” she suggested, and Coulson glanced up at her from his desk chair with a proud smile.

“You’re horrid,” he said with a shake of his head, and May grinned to herself as she turned away and headed for the stairs.

“No, I just love Halloween.”


End file.
